Back home: Fort Worth rejoins major college landscape

By Tim Griffin :
August 25, 2012
: Updated: August 25, 2012 9:00pm

Drover Jack Edmondson leads longhorn cattle along Exchange Avenue at the Fort Worth Stockyards during the twice daily cattle drive on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, in Fort Worth, Texas. A drover is the 1800s term for a cowboy who led livestock on cattle drives. The Fort Worth cattle drive started in 1999 to draw tourists to the historic Stockyards.

FORT WORTH — Generations of hungry patrons have flocked to venerable Joe T. Garcia's Restaurant looking to fill up on their simple but tasty menu of Tex-Mex favorites, enchiladas and fajitas.

As diners wait for their tables, a notable reminder of TCU football is prominently displayed along with the signed pictures of U.S. presidents, network television anchors, movie stars and other celebrities.

Diners can find a large schedule poster that details TCU and its upcoming football schedule for the 2012 season — its first in the Big 12.

“You've got to do that,” said Joe Lancarte Jr., whose family has owned the restaurant near the Fort Worth Stockyards since 1935. “After all, the Frogs are our home team.”

The TCU football program has been a staple in Fort Worth during the program's 107 seasons.

But its arrival into the Big 12, coming soon after the school's recent ascension as a surprise BCS power over the past several years, makes that connection only more dramatic.

“You can feel the buzz in the city as we wait for the start of the season,” Lancarte said. “I know I can hardly wait. I think most of the rest of the city is feeling the same way.”

It's understandable why. Not only are the Horned Frogs rejoining many of their traditional Southwest Conference rivals, but Amon G. Carter Stadium is undergoing a dramatic $164 million renovation that has remade it into one of the showplaces of the nation.

Once fans arrive in the stadium, they will experience a unique stadium atmosphere unlike many in the nation.

The renovated stadium sits on the edge of the TCU campus, but is bordered on one side by some of the most expensive housing in Fort Worth. The Colonial Hills subdivision sits squarely between the Colonial Country Club and the stadium.

“It's been kind of neat to be able to watch the program develop from up close,” said Kenneth Noel, a retired broadcasting and banking executive who lives only a few hundred yards from the stadium.

As Noel rested in his front yard on a sweltering recent Saturday afternoon, he reflected on the development of the TCU program under coach Gary Patterson.

And despite being a Baylor graduate, he's reveled in the Horned Frogs' recent growth he said “made Fort Worth proud.”

“We all kind of follow them around here, as you would expect,” Noel said. “It's kind of hard not to.”

Noel has lived in a couple of houses in the neighborhood for a number of years. He remembers his grown children sneaking into the nearby stadium to watch games during the 1960s.

“We saw the program go down for so long and then it's jumped back up under coach Patterson,” Noel said. “It's great for us here that they are back up again.”

The city of Fort Worth's arrival into the Big 12 will bring a dose of the big city into a league that's been dominated by rural and small college towns during its history.

With 741,206 people living in the city according to the 2010 Census, Fort Worth, Austin and Columbus, Ohio, are the only top-20 cities in population with a home school in a BCS-affiliated football conference.

And with nearby Dallas and Arlington, it will give fans who flock to the Dallas-Fort Worth area for Horned Frogs' games all of the excitement of coming to a big city to go with their game.

“I think TCU has a chance to be the best destination city in the Big 12,” Patterson said. “This can end up being a win-win not only for TCU, but the whole city.”

For all of its cosmopolitan feel, there's still a down-home feel to the city that likes to bill itself as “the place where the West begins.”

And considering that it is Texas, football is worshiped and particularly the Horned Frogs in recent years.

“On game days, everybody in the restaurant is wearing purple,” Lancarte said. “Even our staff does. You come in here and it's amazing the kind of support they have. And with the Big 12 coming, I think it's only going to keep growing.”